Holy Cow! Of Flatulence and Fantasy

One of the Democrats’ Budding Stars (otherwise known as the “BS-ers”) has revealed to us something that not one farmer had ever mentioned on national TV: Cows fart! Golly!

Of course, this particular BS-er did not have anything to say about rabbits, skunks, babies, or old people giving off gaseous emissions! But leave that particular dilemma aside for a moment. Cow farts are the problem-of-the-hour.

I particularly want everyone to note what this particular BS-er advised us all to do: Give up eating meat. Yes, Sir! An immediate end to this flatulence problem would occur with the demise of the many thousands of methane-contributing cows. Of course, just HOW we are going to get rid of “the cattle on a thousand hills” – who, according to the Psalmist, all belong to the Lord God – is something that has not been decided on. Maybe we could ship them to Mars or Venus. Maybe we could launch them all into space (a sort of permanent deep-freeze). At the very least, we could dump every single last one of them into the volcanoes that are erupting around the “Pacific Ring of Fire.” The smell of burning carcasses would only last a year or two!

But the cattle situation COULD be set to one side if we could just build trains across the ocean! Then we wouldn’t have to fly to move people and things around the globe. We could just…take the train! Hmmm….I think I missed something in physics class all those many years ago! (Maybe we could start a “Saint Peter on the Water” International Company!)

The only thing I want to ask this particular BS-er is this: If Superman and Supergirl are allowed to fly, why can’t we ordinary mortals be permitted to do the same? 

“That’s just fantasy,” one of the BS-ers will no doubt say.

Right…never thought of that. Flatulence and fantasy – I’m supposed to take these thing seriously?

You’re joking – right?

Ambassador, Assassin, or Annihilator?

I was sitting in a pew at our church a few Sundays ago, when the pastor read from 2 Corinthians 5 – one of the earliest Bible passages to have impressed me after I was born again over four decades ago. The specific verses read thus:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has  

come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the

ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not      

counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.
We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God

(2 Corinthians 5:17 – 20).

Why did this impact me so much? And why does this continue to impact me? Notice the importance of the pronoun we. Who is the “we”? Is it Saint Paul and his group of evangelists? Is it the recipients of the letter?

Consider this: Paul is dead, as are his companions and the original recipients of the letter. Some people would have us think of most of the Bible as “ancient history,” which gives us some quaint facts about the past, but not much to base our lives on in the 21^st century. But this viewpoint is wrong.

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” wrote Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16 – 17. While Paul possibly did not think of his letters as “scripture,” on more than one occasion, he claimed to have been expressing the mind of Christ. In other words, he knew that he spoke the truth, inspired by the Spirit of Jesus Christ (the Holy Spirit). Later Church Fathers (like Polycarp) recognized the importance of affirming the Gospels, epistles, and revelation written by the original apostles, and of discarding those written by false or misguided teachers. And so the canon of the New Testament has come down to us in all its inspiration, information, and glory.

And now back to my original point. It might not be possible to ascertain exactly who Paul had in mind when he mentioned “we.” The point is: whether it was you, me, or the nearest church pastor, the essential truth of the Gospel is this: God desires all people to be saved. He calls us through Christ and His followers. We are agents of God even as we journey out to the mailbox, the store, or the neighbor.

We are not to attack those who are non-Christians and force them into the kingdom. There are other religions that do this – notably Islam. The instructions in the Koran are quite clear: make people submit to Allah (either by converting them to Islam or by forcing them to admit that they are inferior to Muslims), or kill them. Let us call that the assassin approach. Not very friendly, is it? And in case you doubt this assessment, ask yourself: What is the exact purpose of terrorist attacks? Why are they marked by bloody violence and murder? Are they not designed to force you into doing something? You decide.

We move on. Then there are those religions that advise you to annihilate problems – in other words, isolate yourself from the world around you. Ignore pain and suffering. It “doesn’t exist,” and the farther you remove yourself from people and their problems, the happier you’ll be. Now, that works fine if you are in a Buddhist monastery (or does it?), but it does not work in a family setting or in a work environment. Imagine a mother who ignores her baby’s pain. Imagine a father who does not empathize with his son’s struggles. Imagine ignoring a customer who doesn’t fit a certain caste (happens all the time in India). Not a very pleasant world picture, is it?

Now let us return to the picture Paul gives us in the passage I cited above. What is the best description of an ambassador? Someone who represents the person who sent him or her. An ambassador must understand who is being represented. He or she must think like the one who sent them. Use their words. Imitate their actions. What does an ambassador want to achieve? Harmony. Peace. Perhaps a unity of sorts.

Can you imagine yourself as God’s ambassador? It’s a 24/7 sort of “job,” and it seems rather unpopular in this day and age. But remember this: an ambassador is intimately connected to the power of the country he or she represents. Furthermore, there is a direct connection to the ideals, glory, and purpose of the country.

Granted that God is King forever, I’d say that is eternal job security!